I hate the idea of being just another son who got home too late.
Whoever did this will pay.
I call the emergency line. I give them the address and name twice. I hang up before the operator finishes asking if I'm safe. In under a minute, my voice thins into someone else's. A stranger's voice.
When I put the phone down, all that's left is the pain of not being able to hold them and say goodbye one last time.
I force myself to stay functional. Grief can wait. Vengeance can't. If it took ten years to support them, I'll spend another ten years of experience perfecting their murderers' end.
The rest runs on autopilot: neighbors at the door—curiosity and pity masking their relief that it wasn't them. The emergency crew that arrives too fast and still too late; yellow tape; flashes; questions no mouth should have to ask.
The older cop talks in slow, short sentences, like I might shatter if he raises his voice. "Name?"
"Dryden. Dryden Sands."
Saying it drags my mother into focus—ironically, she named me when the Earth was drying out, as if a name could keep me afloat.
Then he starts firing: "Next of kin? Any enemies? Anyone following you? Where were you?"
The only answer that fits?
"I'm a Drowned. In a mid-dive. A place you wouldn't understand. Trying not to die."
He isn't stupid. He stops writing. He clocks the hollow look in my eyes and the unnatural stillness of my posture. He knows what a Thirstfallen is.
"Botched robbery," someone guesses in the back.
"They didn't take anything," another voice corrects.
I look at the mark on the wall again, small, at Lili's height: three parallel notches, chalk-like, nail-like.
If you've never stepped into Thirstfall, it's just a doodle.
To me… it's a clear message.
The Deepwardens left this as bait, and I will not take it.
Telling the police would be a waste of time. They wouldn't understand the jurisdiction of a world that doesn't exist on their maps. The bureaucracy I'd have to wade through to get to the real culprits would be exhausting and slow.
And I am out of time.
"If they were here, in my apartment... how did they find me? The Codex? How much did they already know?"
Questions spin—a cyclone of impossible variables. But the clock in my skull, the only one that matters, keeps ticking down.
[HUD] 94:26:56.
I move through the next few days like a ghost. Paperwork. Signatures that don't look like mine. A funeral and two boxes of ash. The rituals normal people perform when their world ends.
I'm not normal.
I prepare a dismantling plan. I need to start from the bottom. They are likely after the Aion Codex, but I won't hand it over. Not after this. For the honor of my family, I will burn them down.
Looking in the mirror in the bathroom sink gives me back a face I don't recognize, carved with ten years of Thirstfall mixed with a gaze of deep-seated rancor. My ribs are too clear. The old shoulder scar aches, a dull reminder.
My talent, Flow Cartographer, reads routes and pressure points. It's a shame it couldn't map a betrayal. It never warned me of this.
Ten years breaking my body to keep them safe. Eight years hunting the Aion Codex, and this is what I bring home.
Did I trade their lives for an old book?
The thought burrows in and stays there, gnawing at everything I have left.
Sleep doesn't come. I just lie there, watching the clock in my mind count down. Preparing my plans for when I return. I need to start from the bottom of the pyramid. One by one. Acquiring proof, dismantling them from underneath.
[HUD] 08:12:41... 08:12:40...
It's no help. The Reentry Pearl's window is fixed. You can't speed up the pain or shorten the clock without skills. You just endure.
I go out. It's still dark. Walking, no destination. I just end up at the docks.
The water... I feel more familiar when I'm closer to the water now. I buy a bottle of cheap liquor hoping it burns my anger away, but it doesn't help.
Looking at my phone, my thumb hovers over Rae's name. He was the only one who knew my route. The only one.
My gut knows it was him. My brain just hasn't admitted it yet.
On the last night, the Black Thirst attacks. It's not a normal thirst. It's a hot coal sliding down my throat, branding a path to my stomach. My body is screaming for Thirstfall's atmosphere. The clock is running out.
Time to go back.
Back? The word is a joke. Back where? Why?
Before dawn, I decide to go home. Ditch the cheap hotel room, face the anguish and the disgust one last time.
But when I get there, I stop dead.
There's a new, heavy-duty padlock on the apartment door, crossed with yellow police tape. But it's useless. The hasp has been twisted off, the metal bent by inhuman strength.
Someone forced their way in. Recently.
My veteran instinct screams: Ambush. Turn around. Run.
I know they are waiting inside. I know this is bait.
But I look down at the rainbow-metal bracelet in my hand. The gift I never gave her. The logic in my brain loses the war against the hole in my chest. I don't care if it's a trap. I need to leave it with her.
I push the door open and enter slowly.
The hallway feels colder than usual. The white tape outlines on the floor, drawing the shapes of two bodies, make my blood boil, but a rebellious wave of longing surprises me.
My fingers tingle. The world softens, the edges blurring like a camera losing focus.
[HUD] 04:04:11.
I stand, my body a ton of lead. If I drop here, they'll call another ambulance. The Black Thirst is getting worse.
I stand firm, scanning every corner of the house in a silent farewell, a moment of mourning, and a reminder to collect the price in blood.
I kneel. A moment of weakness hits me as I see the small outline where Lili lay. I lightly touch the mark where her hand would have been and place the bracelet I meant to give her for her birthday on the floor.
The path I intend to follow has no return. It has no Lili. It has no mother.
As I let go of the bracelet, a signal of goodbye, the air pressure in the room drops instantly.
For a split second, the smell of dust vanishes, replaced by a faint, sharp scent of burnt OXI and salt.
A gasp of wind. Too fast to be natural.
...My combat reflex kicks in, but my body is too slow.
Thud.
I feel my brain rattle inside my skull. A sharp, hot pain in the nape of my neck forces my knees to buckle. I slap my hand to the spot and pull it away wet.
Blood.
I stagger, fighting the vertigo that tries to pull me into the dark, and force myself to turn around.
Two silhouettes block the exit, backlit by the hallway lights.
They aren't burglars. They wear sleek, dark tactical gear that fits too well. The one on the left tilts his head, and the dim light catches a silver earring: three parallel notches.
Matches the mark on the wall.
I was right.
They didn't come to offer condolences. They came to erase.